


interlude with steve

by sevedra



Series: Portraits of Recovery [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Introspection, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevedra/pseuds/sevedra
Summary: where is Steve's head during Bucky's recovery?





	interlude with steve

**Author's Note:**

> ugh. so I wrote this whole story and didn't save during and then my computer crashed and I lost the whole thing. and of course, I couldn't remember all the stuff I said or the way I had worded things. and I think I liked the first version better.
> 
> I work without a beta. If you notice grammar or spelling issues, please feel free to let me know and I'll correct them. I proofread and edit and use grammarly, but I never trust that I've actually caught everything.

Steve knew he couldn't live without Bucky. He hadn't been living during those years between waking from the ice and finding out Bucky was alive. Those two years between the fall of the helicarriers and finding Bucky in Romania, he wasn't really alive then either. He needed Bucky to keep him grounded and present in this day and age. Bucky was his rock, his lodestone. Without Bucky, Steve had only half a life and was just a shell of a man.

Bucky was the same man as he had been before HYDRA. He was the most important person in Steve's life then, he was the best man Steve knew, and he had carried a load on his shoulders, but he had been happy with the responsibility. Bucky was also different now. He was still Bucky deep inside. He was still the best friend that Steve had always known, but he was distant. He was still the same good person he had always been, but his goodness was weighed down with guilt. He carried a different burden on his shoulders now, he had carried Steve in Brooklyn, now he carried a weariness of the soul. 

Bucky didn't talk much. He used to tell Steve everything. They shared their lives and experiences and were always open with each other. Bucky wouldn't speak of his time with HYDRA. He said he didn't remember or he didn't want to relive what he did remember. They talked about Brooklyn before the war. They sometimes talked about the two years Bucky spent alone after HYDRA. He didn't go into detail about his struggle breaking the conditioning or his fear of being found and taken back. Steve knew he dealt with those things, but Bucky wouldn't tell him himself. Bucky shared his days of remembering who he was and remembering things he liked and how to live as an independent person. And Steve loved knowing those things. But he couldn't help wishing Bucky would be comfortable enough and trusting enough to tell Steve everything.

They hadn't known how good their life was before the war. Steve had been sick and Bucky had been poor, but they had each other. They had never been alone. When they spoke of Brooklyn now, it was with fondness and a little sadness, knowing those days were gone. Bucky didn't talk about the war. They had been together then too. Both as a unit and with the Commandos. Bucky had said that before Steve came, all the war had done was teach him to be a killer. And that after Azzano, he didn't, couldn't, really care anymore that he was a killer. He had had to hide his physical changes and his mental frame of mind and the war had become so much worse for him until he fell. It had become a war with and against himself in addition to the enemy. He had said that the fall had been a relief. He had been almost glad that it was happening; and then there was HYDRA. The war was a subject better left alone.

Bucky retreated to his room most days. He would spend hours in there, sometimes days. He didn't talk about what he did there. He didn't say why he wanted or needed to be alone, away from the team, away from Steve. Steve sometimes stood outside the door listening but it was always silent. He couldn't pick up anything, even with his enhanced hearing. He would sit against the wall in the corridor, hoping, waiting, for Bucky to emerge. Often Bucky never came out. Steve waited anyway.

Then Bucky started going to the workshop. Steve knew Bucky was afraid, but he was so brave he went anyway. The shop was like a lab and Bucky had to be alone with the man that tried to kill him. Steve didn't know how Bucky did it. After going a few times, he seemed to actually enjoy it. Steve couldn't understand that either. Steve could hardly bear spending time with Tony even with other people present. He never subjected himself to being alone with him. Bucky was often more relaxed after going to Tony to have his arm worked on. Steve didn't know what else they may have done, or what conversations they may have had. Steve just didn't get it.

Sam said Bucky talked to him sometimes. Bucky had told him that he saw a therapist a few times a week. Sam didn't know that Steve was unaware of that. Bucky had talked to Sam about the process Princess Shuri used to free him of the trigger words. He hadn't told Steve anything about that. Not even in Wakanda when it was going on. He had said that it was difficult and he didn't want to dredge it up once he was done, Steve had let it go, but now he wondered if he should have pushed.

Steve was afraid to push. He had Bucky now. Bucky was close and Steve saw him almost every day and they did talk, even if their conversations weren't all Steve wanted them to be. If he pushed, if he tried to coerce or demand that Bucky tell him more, it may cause Bucky to pull away even further. And Steve could not bear that. What if Bucky left again? What if he ran and Steve couldn't find him? What if Steve had to go back to half an existence because he had driven Bucky away? He would just have to be satisfied with what he had. Because he had Bucky. Not all of Bucky, but more than none.

So, yea, Bucky was distant. It was as if there were a huge gulf between them. Steve stood on one side, with a sheer drop from the cliff's edge that he had no hope of climbing down. And the far side was too great a distance for Steve to jump, even with his super speed and strength. Bucky was on the other cliff. Steve wanted to be closer to him. To stand with him and support him and help him move away from that frightening steep depth. He just couldn't find a way to get to Bucky. A way to really connect.

Bucky seemed to have liked his time in Romania best of all his time after HYDRA. Even more than the peacetime they were briefly having now in the compound. He had found himself in Romania. He had made his own place to live, he had supported himself, he had learned to be human again. Steve thought Bucky was becoming even more human now. He was wearing soft clothes instead of his tac gear and he wasn't startled at shadows and movements in the corner of his eye anymore. Steve believed that Bucky would eventually be at his happiest since HYDRA here. In the compound, with the team, with Steve. Once he finished settling and healing, Bucky would bond with the team and then officially join the Avengers. They would fight together the way they had in Brooklyn, the way they had in the war. Side by side, or with Steve out in front and Bucky watching his back, or Bucky scouting ahead and clearing the way for Steve to follow. In any case, they would be together and they would fight the good fight and they would save people and make the world a better place. And then Bucky could finally let go of the guilt.

Because Bucky was still heavy with guilt. He didn't need to be. He hadn't done any of those things because he wanted to. The Winter Soldier had committed those crimes. The Winter Soldier was just a tool of HYDRA and he wasn't Bucky at all. Helping to save people would let Bucky balance the scales that he imagined he had weighed down on one side. The red in his ledger as Natasha would say. Steve just wished Bucky could see that the red wasn't in his ledger. It was in HYDRA's and The Winter Soldier's ledger. Bucky's ledger was clean and white and blank. The men he killed in the war were enemies and the kills were necessary. The people that were killed for HYDRA were not Bucky's responsibility. Bucky would surely see that one day. Hopefully soon.

 In the meantime, until Bucky realized his guilt was misplaced, Steve would wait. He would keep waiting.

 

 

 

  


End file.
